Vermont Homeschool Requirements: Ten Business Days, Five Ways to Assess, and a Report Due to the Legislature on December 1

Vermont rewrote its home study statute in 2023, cutting it from a review process to a set of attestations. Most of the law's old subsections now read simply [Repealed.] What's left is short, specific, and worth reading in full. Below is what it says, in the Legislature's own text and the Agency of Education's own words, along with the one part that is genuinely in motion this year.

The short version

• File a notice of intent at least 10 business days before you start, on the Agency of Education's form. Returning families file a shorter annual notice each year, also 10 business days ahead.
• Don't withdraw from school until the Agency confirms enrollment. The Agency's page says submitting the notice does not mean that the student has been enrolled.
• Compulsory attendance runs from 6 to 16. Completing 10th grade also ends it.
• The equivalent of at least 175 days of instruction in Vermont's minimum course of study. Children 13 and older have a shorter required subject list.
• Assess your child at the end of every school year, by one of five methods the statute names, and keep the record. Don't send it to the Agency unless you want it reviewed.
• First-time families owe one extra document: proof of prior Vermont public school enrollment, or independent professional evidence on whether the child has a documented disability.
• Withdrawing from home study: tell the Agency in writing within 10 business days.
• Watch December 1, 2026. Act 122 of 2026 requires the Agency to send the Legislature's education committees recommendations for updating the home study law by that date. An amendment to change enrollment this year was defeated, so the law itself didn't change in 2026.

The notice, and exactly what goes in it

16 V.S.A. § 166b(a) begins with the deadline:

A parent or legal guardian shall send the Secretary notice of intent to enroll the parent's or legal guardian's child in a home study program at least 10 business days prior to commencing home study. Such notice shall be submitted via a form developed by the Agency of Education.

The statute then lists what the notice contains. Reduced to plain terms:

1. The child's name, age, and date of birth.
2. The names, mailing addresses, email addresses, town of legal residence, and phone numbers of all parents or guardians with legal custody who are legally authorized to make educational decisions for the student.
3. An attestation that the child's academic progress will be assessed at the end of each school year and that you will keep the record (the five permitted methods are below).
4. For a child never before enrolled in a Vermont public school or Vermont home study program, independent professional evidence regarding whether the child has a documented disability.
5. An attestation that the child will get the equivalent of at least 175 days of instruction in the minimum course of study per year.
6. The signatures of all parents or guardians with legal custody and educational decision-making authority. Or, in the statute's words, the parent seeking enrollment may provide attestation of sole primary educational decision-making authority.

That last item matters for divided households. By default the statute wants every custodial parent with educational authority to sign. The alternative is an attestation that you hold sole primary decision-making authority, so if that isn't true, you can't sign it.

Ten business days, and the order of operations

Subsection (b) gives the Agency the same window to respond: within 10 business days of a complete notice, the Secretary sends a written acknowledgment, which shall constitute sufficient enrollment verification for the compulsory attendance law. Until that acknowledgment exists, your child is still enrolled wherever they were. The Agency of Education's home study page is blunt about it:

Submission of a Notice of Intent does not mean that the student has been enrolled in a Home Study program. When students are officially enrolled in a Home Study program, we will let you know by email, and then send an official letter in the mail.

And then:

Once you receive this confirmation, you may withdraw your student from their school and begin Home Study.

So the safe order is file, wait for the email, then withdraw. The Agency says enrollments can take up to 10 business days to process, so plan for two weeks between filing and the first day. The Agency adds that after school begins, students not completely enrolled in Home Study should continue to attend school until their enrollment is complete, and that a family planning to start with the school year should submit by early August.

Every year after the first

Subsection (k) requires a returning family to notify the Secretary on or before the start of each following year of the intention to continue, on the Agency's form, at least 10 business days prior to the intended start date. The Agency describes its Annual Notice as similar to the original, except that Parents/Guardians will attest that they successfully completed the previous year of Home Study, and maintained records of an annual evaluation.

Read that attestation the way a careful person reads anything they sign. Every year you certify, in writing, that last year's evaluation exists. If it doesn't exist, you can't truthfully sign the form.

The five ways to assess, and the record you keep

Section 166b(a)(3) lists the permitted methods of end-of-year assessment:

• A standardized assessment, which may be administered by the local school district or a testing service or administered in a manner approved by the testing company;
• A review of the student's progress by someone who holds a current Vermont teacher's certificate;
• A parent or guardian report and portfolio that includes a summary of what the student learned during the school year and at least four samples of student work;
• Grades from an online academy or school; or
• Evidence of passing the GED.

The third option is the one most families will use, and it is specific: a written summary of what your child learned, plus at least four work samples. The Agency publishes a Template for Parent Report and Student Portfolio in Word and PowerPoint on its home study page.

Where it goes is just as specific. The Agency's page, describing the 2023 changes: Families are no longer required to submit an End of Year Assessment to AOE. And under what families need to do now: assess each student at the end of the school year, Keep a copy for your records, and Do not send a copy to the Agency of Education unless you want it to be reviewed.

Nobody collects it. But you attest to it every year, the statute requires it, and it is exactly the document Vermont's 2023 debate was about. Keep it the way you would keep a tax return.

175 days, and which subjects

The attestation in 166b(a)(5) points to the minimum course of study in 16 V.S.A. § 906, which lists six fields, as learning experiences adapted to a student's age and ability:

1. basic communication skills, including reading, writing, and the use of numbers;
2. citizenship, history, and government in Vermont and the United States;
3. physical education and comprehensive health education, including the effects of tobacco, alcoholic drinks, and drugs;
4. English, American, and other literature;
5. the natural sciences; and
6. the fine arts.

A detail most summaries skip: for a child younger than 13, the home study statute requires all six. For a child 13 or older, it requires only fields (1), (2), (4), and (5). Physical and health education and the fine arts drop off the required list at 13. That doesn't mean they stop mattering. It means the attestation you sign stops including them.

The Agency suggests writing your plan down as a "Minimum Course of Study," keeping a copy, and, in its words, Do not send a copy to the Agency of Education.

Compulsory age, as amended in 2026

16 V.S.A. § 1121, as amended by Act 122 effective July 1, 2026, requires the parent of a child between six and 16 years of age to have the child attend a public school, an approved or recognized independent school, an approved education program, or a home study program. The exceptions include a child who has completed the 10th grade. Home study is named in the statute as one of the ways to meet the law, not as an exception to it.

Children with disabilities

Two things in Vermont are different here.

The first-time evidence requirement. A child new to both Vermont public school and Vermont home study needs independent professional evidence about whether they have a documented disability. The Agency's page says first-time enrollments submit either a document showing prior Vermont public school enrollment (it gives a report card or attendance report as examples), or its Independent Professional Evidence Form, or other accepted alternative (i.e. a copy of an IEP or 504 plan).

Services stop at the door. The Agency states that by enrolling in home study, Students are not entitled to and may not receive any special education supports and services through the school, and that Families are required to provide their student with Adaptations. The statute's matching attestation, at 166b(a)(5)(C), is that a parent must attest to providing adaptations for a student with a documented disability. Since 2023 you no longer send the adaptations to the Agency. If your child has an IEP, read the Agency's Home Study FAQ: Special Needs/Special Education before you file, because this decision gives up something specific.

Leaving home study

Section 166b(c):

The parent or guardian shall notify the Secretary in writing within 10 business days following the date that any student is withdrawn from the student's home study program.

The Agency's page asks a family returning to public or independent school to notify the Home Study Office in writing or by email. The address it gives is aoe.homestudy@vermont.gov.

The religious waiver

Subsection (j) keeps one narrow provision: if a home study program is unable to comply with any specific requirements due to deep religious conviction shared by an organized group, the Secretary may waive those requirements on finding that the educational purposes of the section are being or will be substantially met. Note the words "shared by an organized group." It is not a personal-conviction opt-out, and it is discretionary.

What's in motion: the December 1, 2026 report

In 2026 the Legislature passed H.930, a chronic absenteeism bill, and it became Act 122, effective July 1, 2026. The Office of Legislative Counsel's act summary ends with this:

Finally, this act requires the Agency of Education to submit a written report to the House and Senate Committees on Education with recommendations for updates to Vermont's home study program law on or before December 1, 2026.

Here is what we can say from sources, and where we stop:

• Act 122 did not amend section 166b. The Legislature's published text of 166b shows no 2026 amendment, while its published text of section 1121, which Act 122 did amend, shows the 2026 change. Home study law for the 2026-27 year is the 2023 text quoted on this page.
• A floor amendment to H.930 that would have changed home study enrollment was defeated in the Senate in May 2026, according to the Home School Legal Defense Association, which opposed it. As HSLDA described it, the amendment would have had superintendents and the Department for Children and Families report concerns to the Agency before enrollment was acknowledged. We are attributing that account to HSLDA because we did not read the amendment text ourselves.
• School leaders asked for the old rules back. A February 10, 2026 letter from the Vermont Superintendents Association and the Vermont Principals' Association to the House Education Committee, later filed with the Senate Education Committee's H.930 documents, requested provisions which represent a return to the pre-2023 regulations. The first one listed: Require submission of annual assessment records upon re-enrollment in a home study program. That is a request on the Legislature's site, not law, and it did not become law in 2026.

We won't predict what the Agency recommends or what the 2027 Legislature does with it. A recommendation isn't law, and the Agency's report is due after this page was published. What we can say is that the end-of-year assessment you keep is the document most likely to matter whichever way this goes. A family with a real assessment on file every year is fine under the current law, and would be fine under the old one too.

What this actually means for your week

Vermont asks for a notice, a calendar's worth of teaching across a defined course of study, and an honest end-of-year assessment that you keep. The state doesn't review your curriculum or collect your assessment. Every year, though, you sign a form saying the assessment exists.

That is what we built for. Mrs. M teaches your child the core subjects one on one, at their level, and keeps a record of every session as a byproduct of teaching it: which subject, which lesson, what your child worked on, and how they did. When it's time to write the summary of what your child learned this year and pull four samples of their work, the year is already written down. We don't promise your child will hit any particular mark. Nobody honest does. And we are not a Vermont-certified teacher, so our records support your own portfolio. They don't replace the licensed-teacher review option.

Curious how this works day to day with your own curriculum? Here's the honest guide to teaching your own curriculum with us, written for every out-of-state family, Vermont included. Since the end-of-year record is the heart of Vermont's law, homeschool record keeping is the natural next read. If your child has an IEP, start with homeschooling with an IEP or a learning difference. Or see the requirements for every other state.